COBATEST Network 2017 Report

The COBATEST 2017 Report is now available - 36 of our members in 16 countries contributed their data.

In 2017, members reported 111,579 clients tested for HIV, 1,781 for Hepatitis and 6,643 for syphilis. The percentage of reactive HIV tests among members varied from 0.0% to 4.9% (GENDERDOC-M in Moldova), with an average of 1.3%.

Key populations (MSM, SW, PWID and migrants) are more likely than the general population to be returning for testing in the same CBVCT within 12 months and the proportion is especially high in SW and transgender people. This indicates that CBVCT services are catering to people who face barriers in accessing mainstream health services.

The types of services that members offer are expanding, and many now test for HIV, HCV, syphilis and more. To better reflect this reality we will start asking for data on syphilis and HCV testing in the aggregated submission form. The alarmingly high proportion of reactive tests among the few transgender people that were tested emphasises the need to collect good data on this population so that CBVCTs can better tailor services.

There are reporting gaps in some of the data collected, particularly data on confirmatory tests. This gap is largest amongst migrants, reflecting difficulties in performing follow-up with this group.

The data collected through the COBATEST Network is of high quality and useful in informing decisions within the organisation, at the national and the European level. In spite of this, most national surveillance systems are still not including CBVCT data in their testing statistics.